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Tourism
Iberostar Rose Hall
John Lynch (Executive Vice President Marketing, Sandals Group) is the new Chairman of the Jamaica Tourist Board. The Government couldn’t have chosen a better person, says the head of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, Wayne Cummings (General Manager of Sandals Negril). The Opposition says there is clear conflict of interest between working for a major player in the industry and chairing the tourist board.
The only people with sufficient clout to object (the Issa family, who own Super Clubs, Couples and Swept Away) are silent (so far). Perhaps for good reason - the only similar conflict of interest in this particular post occurred when John Issa, Chairman of Super Clubs, chaired the Tourist Board under the last JLP administration in the 1980’s.
Butch Stewart, Chairman of the Sandals Group, and major financial backer of the current JLP government, is so irritated at the Opposition’s suggestion that his employees should not now control all aspects of the local industry (he’s paid good money for this, after all) that he’s accusing the former PNP administration of having sold their soul to foreign investors. The foreign investors now in possession of the PNP’s soul are doubtless the Riu Group, the Fiesta Group, the Grupo Pinero, Iberostar et al. Hope the PNP’s soul is worth something, because it seems to me that these investors are in for a very rough ride indeed………….
The Palmyra Rose Hall (still under construction by foreign investor…..)
On a side note, it is interesting that Mr Stewart blames his misfortunes on a cabal consisting of former tourism Minister Aloun Assamba, former State Minister of Tourism Wykeham McNeil and former Tourist Board Chairman Dennis Morrison. He also sticks it to former Minister of Finance Omar Davies. Considering that former Prime minister P.J. Patterson was responsible for bringing the Spanish hoteliers to Jamaica, and ex-Chairman of UDC, Vin Lawrence, aka God, was responsible for the massive cost overruns and building defects at Sandals Whitehouse, it suggests that Mr. Stewart thinks these gentlemen remain too powerful (or know too much) to be dissed in public, whereas his targets are has-beens who will not be back to haunt him……..
Energy
The late and unlamented Minister of Industry, Commerce and Energy, Phillip Paulwell, is under fire again over those free light bulbs he got from Cuba. Turns out that the fluorescent light bulbs were free and they were handed out by Cubans, but the Government of Jamaica agreed to pay transportation, handling, storage etc etc .
The monies paid for these expenses went to some little known company that didn’t bid for the job, and isn’t registered with the National Contracts Commission…….How much do you want to bet that the little known company will turn out to be owned by a PNP crony or even by Phillip Paulwell himself……
Wonder whether it will take two, three or five years to discover the exact extent of Phillip Paulwell’s ‘youthful exuberances’…….He must be first on the list of potential former Ministers to go to jail (you haven’t forgotten Portia sending J.A.G. Smith- her JLP predecessor as Minister of Labour- to prison for stealing farmworkers’ money, have you ? Someone in the PNP is going to have to pay for that …..)
“Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings: All New Listings of the Most Efficient Products You Can Buy” (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy)
Serious changes
(1) The new government is actually going to fund Parish Councils by allowing them to collect and keep property taxes. Could be the start of something good. However, I’ll believe it when I see it, and I only expect to see it if the JLP retains control of most of the Parish Councils in the upcoming Local Government Elections………..
(2) Colonel Trevor McMillan (former head of the police force, former head of the Revenue Protection Division) is to be a Special Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Public Service. This is one of those jobs that involves rooting out corruption and going after corrupt people (in other words, treading on the corns of important private sector persons, dons from both parties, and sundry ’small people’who will complain they ‘just want to eat a bread’…..)
This is also a believe-it-when-you-see-it deal, but with former Minister of National Security Peter Phillips to help him, Colonel McMillan may succeed in locking up a few PNP cronies and officials whom Peter Phillips would just as soon have out of the way (Phillip Paulwell, yuh really in trouble boy…..).